WNMU cell and molecular biology major Vera Layton is minoring in chemistry and aiming for medical school. The senior from Tucson, Arizona, said she wants to become a doctor to help people, even though that sounds—in her mind—cliché. “I’m good with people interactions and good with medicine.”
She spent June and July studying hantaviruses. The Undergraduate Pipeline Network summer research experience, essentially a paid internship in STEM, confirmed that Layton would rather be face-to-face with a patient than alone in a laboratory.
“We were looking at molecular pathways for hantavirus. We know what it causes but not why it causes it,” Layton said. “Hantaviruses aren’t very well known. There’s no treatment. We’re trying to find ways to reduce hospitalization.”
Working with one strain, Layton worked to extract all the components of the virus. “The only one I was able to successfully extract was the nucleocapsid. I was able to extract and synthesize it,” she said. “Overall, it felt like a new discovery. I felt important.”
She came away with countless new skills and more context that she believes will help her better understand biology and practice medicine. “I learned techniques like how to synthesize DNA and RNA and make proteins,” said Layton noting that some information is overlapping with the molecular genetics and immunology courses she is taking now.